Weather you're ready or not
The image of southern France I had in my head hadn't prepared me for the inevitable onset of winter
Unless you choose to travel to a spot where the climate is warm and sunny all the time, you’re bound to run into a little bad weather. Here in southern France, which I somehow expected would remain warm until I take off to Morocco in early December, they are announcing, Game of Thrones style, that Winter is Coming.
I know that most of my Canadian readers are scoffing right now. Winter in southern France is like a late fall in Montréal. Which, yes I heard, has already had it’s first snow fall and is expecting another 10 cm today.
But as a life-long Montrealer, I was always prepared for winter, so I rarely gave it much thought. When the temperature drops, you turn the heat back on and gradually bring the winter clothes out of the back closet. The point is that you are prepared for winter, and when you are prepared, you can actually rejoice as those first few flakes flutter softly to the ground and form that thin coat of white that quietly covers the yellow grass and black pavement.
They are announcing the first frost here this week, and I’m not ready. It seem that fall had barely started when I went to Montpellier, Strasbourg and Paris in late October and early November. Even as I travelled 600 km north, I could get away with a pullover and windbreaker in the worst of the light rain. But I had to buy the “pull” in a Strasbourg second-hand shop, because I wasn’t prepared. And I had to buy a tuque in Paris because all I had brought to protect my shaved head was a bottle of SPF 30 sunscreen.
When I got back to Toulouse a week ago, I was thrilled that I could abandon the tuque once more, but I had learned my lesson and I now keep it tucked away in the pocket of my windbreaker. Although the old tale about losing half your body heat through your head is a myth, walking around in the cold without a hat is like walking around in shorts, a generally bad idea, unless you enjoy discomfort. Me, I much prefer the sensation of pulling a warm wool watch cap over the cold stubble of my naked noggin.
I’ve heard from more than one person here that they’d give serious consideration to moving to Canada if it weren’t for the winter. I try to explain that when you are used to it, it really isn’t that bad. We dress for the weather and most of the discomfort comes from lugging all that extra insulation around once you’re back indoors, like at a shopping mall. I might mention Montréal’s extensive “underground city,” where you could go for miles without ever going outdoors, but where’s the fun in that? Winter is best when it is embraced, whether it’s skiing, skating or a snowball fight. Hiding from it is what makes it depressing, and I’ll take a sunny Montréal winter over Vancouver’s constant rain and cloud any day.
So my moral here, I seem to be telling myself, it to stop fleeing the French winter, to prepare myself and embrace it.
Sure. After I get back from Morocco in January. Tho I might take the long way back. With maybe a side trip to Tunisia, then a slow trek through southern Spain. Maybe if I prepare myself that way, I can embrace French spring instead.